Abstract: A decade long experience shows that monitoring the performance of public and private monopolies in South America is proving to be the hard part of the reform process. The operators who control most of the information needed for regulatory purposes have little interest in volunteering their dissemination unless they have an incentive to do so. Estache, Rossi, and Ruzzier argue that, in spite of, and maybe because of, a much weaker information base and governance structure, South America's electricity sector could pursue an approach that relies on performance rankings based on comparative efficiency measures. The authors show that with the rather modest data currently available publicly, such an approach could yield useful results. They provide estimates of efficiency levels in South America's main distribution companies between 1994 and 2000. Moreover, the authors show how relatively simple tests can be used by regulators to check the robustness of their results and strengthen their position at regulatory hearings. This paper"a joint product of the Governance, Regulation, and Finance Division, World Bank Institute, and the Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Unit, Latin America and the Caribbean Region"is part of a larger effort in the institute to increase understanding of infrastructure regulation.

The world's energy structure underpins the global environmental crisis and changing it will require regulatory change at a massive level. Energy is highly regulated in international law, but the field has never been comprehensively mapped. The legal sources on which the governance of energy is based are plentiful but they are scattered across a vast legal expanse. This book is the first single-authored study of the international law of energy as a whole. Written by a world-leading expert, it provides a comprehensive account of the international law of energy and analyses the implications of the ongoing energy transformation for international law. The study combines conceptual and doctrinal analysis of all the main rules, processes and institutions to consider the past, present and likely future of global energy governance. Providing a solid foundation for teaching, research and practice, this book addresses both the theory and real-world policy dimension of the international law of energy.

Bridging theory and practice, this book offers insights into how Europe has experienced the evolution of modern electricity markets from the end of the 1990s to the present day. It explores defining moments in the process, including the four waves of European legislative packages, landmark court cases, and the impact of climate strikes and marches.

This open access book is an encyclopaedic analysis of the current and future energy system of the world’s most populous country and second biggest economy. What happens in China impacts the planet. In the past 40 years China has achieved one of the most remarkable economic growth rates in history. Its GDP has risen by a factor of 65, enabling 850,000 people to rise out of poverty. Growth on this scale comes with consequences. China is the world’s biggest consumer of primary energy and the world’s biggest emitter of CO2 emissions. Creating a prosperous and harmonious society that delivers economic growth and a high quality of life for all will require radical change in the energy sector, and a rewiring of the economy more widely. In China’s Energy Revolution in the Context of the Global Energy Transition, a team of researchers from the Development Research Center of the State Council of China and Shell International examine how China can revolutionise its supply and use of energy. They examine the entire energy system: coal, oil, gas, nuclear, renewables and new energies in production, conversion, distribution and consumption. They compare China with case studies and lessons learned in other countries. They ask which technology, policy and market mechanisms are required to support the change and they explore how international cooperation can smooth the way to an energy revolution in China and across the world. And, they create and compare scenarios on possible pathways to a future energy system that is low-carbon, affordable, secure and reliable.

There is a need for fundamental changes in the ways society views electric energy. Electric energy must be treated as a commodity which can be bought, sold, and traded, taking into account its time-and space-varying values and costs. This book presents a complete framework for the establishment of such an energy marketplace. The framework is based on the use of spot prices. In general terms: o An hourly spot price (in dollars per kilowatt hour) reflects the operating and capital costs of generating, transmitting and distributing electric energy. It varies each hour and from place to place. o The spot price based energy marketplace involves a variety of utility-customer transactions (ranging from hourly varying prices to long-term, multiple-year contracts), all of which are based in a consistent manner on hourly spot prices. These transactions may include customers selling to, as well as buying from, the utility. The basic theory and practical implementation issues associated with a spot price based energy marketplace have been developed and discussed through a number of different reports, theses, and papers. Each addresses only a part of the total picture, and often with a somewhat different notation and terminology (which has evolved in parallel with our growing experience). This book was xvii xviii Preface written to serve as a single, integrated sourcebook on the theory and imple mentation of a spot price based energy marketplace.

This book explores the regulatory challenges posed by the changing landscape of electricity trade to the multilateral trading system.

The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed the emergence of globalized markets accompanied by an uneven process of national and international deregulation and re-regulation. The combined activities of transnational corporations in manufacturing industries (moving towards the global factory) and thenewly privatized businesses in the energy, telecommunications and transportation sectors have fuelled an unprecedented growth in global markets and international business networks. The unexpected but now well established development of capitalism in eastern Europe and the boom in China's specialeconomic zones have added still further to the opportunities and risks inherent in the rapidly developing global economy. For lawyers, economists, and political scientists one of the most significant aspects of the emergence of global markets is the question of regulation: how to regulate marketaccess, product safety, consumer protection laws, financial services, probity and capital adequacy as well as anti-trust and competition laws and policies. Businesses complain that regulatory requirements frequently hinder the development of new markets. At the same time greater public awarenessand concern, especially over other global issues such as environment protection, have raised the cost implications of regulatory requirements, sometimes astronmically.The essays in this volume attempt to address the success of efforts in the European Community, the US and elsewhere in the world to regulate in such a way as to accomodate both the interests of business and the wider interests of the public. The volume is divided into several sections, the firstwhich deals with the globalization of regulatory processes. Other sections examine regulatory competition in the field of company law, self-regulation and competition in US corporate law; regulatory regimes in the European Union and the issue of regulatory coordination affecting economic and socialinsterests.This is an original and wide-ranging collection of essays which will attract a broad readership both in the US and Europe.